1. Field of the Invention
The instant invention concerns mammalian tissue cell culture systems. More specifically, the invention concerns automated stem cells culture systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Since the inception of stable cultures of human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) by Thomson et al. (1998) a growing number of researchers have begun to explore possible therapeutic and diagnostic uses for ESCs. However, even research use of ESCs has strained the limited supplies of ESC cultures. Growing human ES cells is a highly inefficient and variable process since culturing techniques require a high degree of personnel skills and time. Furthermore, the time, labor and complexity of ESC culture has resulted in a very high cost for such cultures. Thus, current methods for stem cell culture are inadequate even for production of sufficient numbers of ECS to satisfy the demands of the research community. Even greater numbers of ESCs will be required to implement a commercially viable therapeutic and diagnostic use of ES cells. Thus, there is need for improved cost effective methods for culture of ESCs.
Previously, methods for automated maintenance of ES cell cultures have been described (Terstegge et al., 2007); however, such methods do not allow ES cell culture to be expanded and thus fail to address the problems associated with large scale ES cell production. Due to immense variability of manual procedures and their limitations towards economical scale-up production of cells, the ability to economically produce high quality cell lineages in large quantities by automation will likely be a crucial criteria that may define success in this very young and promising field. Clearly, there exists a need for improved methods and systems for culture and production of ES cells.